Down-home restaurant has been serving up fish, gator and turtle for 40 years

A visit by a big-name chef has a down-home Osceola County eatery getting ready for its moment in the national spotlight.

The Catfish Place of St. Cloud will be featured on celebrity chef Emeril Lagasse's new Cooking Channel show, "Emeril's Florida," Sunday morning.

Lagasse, known for his Louisiana cooking and catchphrases including "Bam!," stopped by for a bite at the restaurant in November. Impressed by the fresh native cuisine, he came back to film in January. In the episode, Lagasse tastes some of the restaurant's signature dishes and learns how they're made.

"If you want to eat where the locals do and try dishes you can't find in many places, Catfish is the place to try," Lagasse says of the restaurant.

The episode also offers a look at Osceola destinations, including a visit to Old Hickory Steakhouse at the Gaylord Palms and an airboat trip on Lake Toho.

For a show that explores the cuisine of the Sunshine State, the Catfish Place has obvious appeal. Like St. Cloud itself, the restaurant retains a strong Old Florida feel. Murals of pine scrub and riverscapes adorn the walls, along with the occasional stuffed animal head.

The menu is Old Florida, too. Heavy on fried foods, it offers not just catfish but gator, turtle and frog legs, which not too long ago were served with the feet still attached. Because Osceola is cattle country, steaks and burgers are on the menu, too.

"We do have broiled entrees and grilled entrees, but most of the good-tasting stuff is fried," said Judy Johnson, laughing. She and her late husband, Steve, opened the business on 13th Street in 1973; it has been serving hearty food in the same one-story building, decorated with oversized catfish, ever since.

Although Johnson has stepped back from a day-to-day role, daughter Deana Taylor and son Randy Johnson both work there full time. Another son, Bob, owns the separate Catfish Place in Apopka.

Johnson prides herself on the fact that everything on the menu — hush puppies, coleslaw, all the sauces — is made from scratch. All the fish is wild-caught, with the catfish and gators coming from Lake Okeechobee. Until the local trapper retired, Osceola's nuisance gators would end up on the menu.

In a tight-knit community where many residents have deep roots, familiar faces are common at the restaurant. ("My third-grade teacher is over there having lunch," Taylor, 40, pointed out on a recent afternoon.) Staff and diners alike tend to be loyal. Server Mary Smith has been there since the beginning. General Manager Debbie Taylor recently marked 35 years.

Hugh Wright, 72, is among the restaurant's devoted regular customers. He said he has been having lunch at the Catfish Place daily for more than 20 years. Sometimes he and his wife come by for dinner. And sometimes he's there for both meals.

"I own half the furniture in here," he joked. "Or at least have paid for it."

"Everybody knows everybody," Wright said of the lunch crowd. "It's not unusual to see a couple guys with spurs still on, from working cattle on the ranch."

And while the family is proud to be spotlighted on the show, Lagasse's appearance isn't the Catfish Place's first brush with celebrities — or even celebrity chefs. Previous diners have included actors Don Johnson and Kurt Russell, as well as the Harlem Globetrotters. Chef Robert Irvine recently stocked up on food from the restaurant's kitchen to prepare a meal for his Food Network show "Dinner: Impossible."

But this visit, to borrow another of Lagasse's catchphrases, kicked it up a notch.

"When an icon or a legend in the food industry says, 'You're doing the right thing,'" said Randy Johnson, "that's huge to us."